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Jack and Betty Lou Ludwick
jludwick@ieee.org
The Performance Driving Course was scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, October 2nd and 3rd. We had planned on spending four days in Las Vegas before renting a car and driving to the Spring Mountain facility on Sunday, touring Red Rock Canyon along the way.
The previous Friday, Betty Lou suddenly experienced severe pain in her right knee. When it had not subsided by Monday she saw her primary care physician, who arranged an appointment with an orthopedist. An exam and X-ray was inconclusive and, after a dozen calls, their office was able to arrange an MRI scan for 8 PM that evening.
Examination of the images Tuesday showed the joint pain was caused by fluid buildup. Eventually the fluid would be absorbed, but not in time for our scheduled departure the next morning. Fortunately, we had once again purchased travel insurance and General Motors allowed me to postpone the driving school class to the beginning May, 2018, which historically has temperatures similar to the beginning of October.
The last time we were in Las Vegas, we had enjoyed the Sunday Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues, compliments of ClubCorp, which also operates the Tower Club where we're members, and we might have returned this time before heading out to Spring Mountain.
The significance of this is that the House of Blues is located in the heart of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Of course, we'd have been long gone before that evening's chaos, but it's chilling to realize that such evil already would have been in position overhead.
Then I recalled the visit to Paris many years ago when a terrorist bomb exploded in a Metro station – one of 245 in the system – that we'd passed through just the day before.
And someone reminded me of the time we were leaving early to Europe for a wine tour of Spain and Portugal after a week in London. Along the way, we had made dinner reservations at Windows on the World, atop the World Trade Center, for Saturday – four days after 9/11.
The only reason we were able to proceed is that our modes of travel were via train to New York, where we'd board the QE2 on Sunday. Just before we left, we learned it was being diverted to Boston, to which we were able to extend our rail journey.
By the time the wine tour began two weeks later in Barcelona, US air travel restrictions had eased – we had no difficulty flying from London several days earlier – and eventually the rest of the group straggled in, but with tales of great inconvenience.
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